9. Jake
Chapter 9
Jake
D id I really just make that joke out loud? Hazard of heading into guys’ day, I guess. I get to let my guard down a little, but being this close to Dylan makes that not such a great idea. We’ve been alone all of six minutes and I’m talking about whipping my cock out. What the hell is wrong with me?
Oh wait, I know.
Between the tattoos on his forearms, the way his quads flex when he presses on the clutch, and the way this car smells like testosterone and leather, I’m about to start licking everything in sight. Including him.
Especially him.
I’m grateful it was just a joke about whipping my cock out and not me actually doing it.
We merge onto the highway and I tell him which exit to take before immediately apologizing for my crude joke because really, I don’t know him well enough to be talking about my dick.
“Sorry for my terrible humor. I don’t get many days to just let loose. It’s like I totally lose my manners and my filter when I’m around these guys.”
“You mean there are more down-to-earth, millionaires like you?” he asks before pausing abruptly. “Wait, we’re not hanging out on someone’s yacht, are we?”
I can’t help my laugh and I definitely don’t correct him even though my net worth is two-point-four billion dollars. The only reason my money matters around Dylan is so I can give him everything he wants, but something tells me he’ll never ask me for a single thing.
“First of all, the only other rich guy is Phoenix, but you’d never know it. Secondly, the boat belongs to Knox and it’s nice, but it’s far from a yacht.”
He still seems slightly anxious and I hope like hell it isn’t because of me.
“Tell me more about your friends. What am I walking into? They know I’m coming, right?”
“Yeah, they know. Let’s see. Phoenix and I are the youngest. He’s a firefighter, but he actually invented some kind of skin-safe, flame-retardant. I don’t really know much about it because science isn’t my thing, but I’ve seen it in action. It’s really helpful when you have to get people out of burning buildings and they don’t have gear on. They also keep it in airplane cockpits now, too. Dude doesn’t have a serious bone in his body though, unless he’s on a call. Then there’s Hudson. He’s a couple years older than me and Phoe. He’s a residential delivery driver for KPS, and then there’s Knox, whom you’ve met. He’ll be more talkative today, but only slightly. He went through a nasty divorce about three years ago and I think he just needs to get laid.”
“Don’t we all?” Dylan snorts.
The joke catches me off guard.
“There’s no way you have trouble in that department.” I quickly realize I probably shouldn’t have said that, but again…no filter today. I force a laugh to hide my jealousy over women I don’t even know who get to explore his naked body.
“You’d be surprised,” he says cryptically.
“I figured chicks would throw themselves at you. Don’t girls love guys with tattoos and shit?”
Dylan laughs. “They do.”
Wait… “They do throw themselves at you or they do love guys with tattoos?”
He laughs harder. “Both.”
“So, what’s the problem?” I ask, genuinely not following his logic here.
He takes a deep breath and the air shifts in the car. “Well, the biggest problem for them is that I’m attracted to men. And the biggest problem for me is that men typically don’t throw themselves at me like women do.”
I sit up straighter and plant my hand on the console, whipping my head toward him.
“ You’re gay ?”
What are the fucking odds?
Oh, I’m so fucked.
Royally fucked.
Like, fucked beyond belief fucked.
Like, if getting fucked was an Olympic sport, I’d be taking home the gold fucking medal.
Dylan’s face grows tight. “Should I just go ahead and turn around? We can call this whole thing off if it’s a problem.”
“Dude, no . It’s not a problem. I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was. It was just so…unexpected.” Shit, I need to put him at ease fast, but it’s been a long-ass time since I’ve discussed sexual preferences with another guy and I’ve completely forgotten how to interact with my own kind without sounding like an insensitive douchebag.
The fact that Dylan’s gay is somehow both the best news and the worst news at the same damn time. Oh, how I want to trail my lips down his throat before kissing him senseless. Hell, I wish I could even tell him that I want to do that.
But I can’t.
Too much is at stake and regardless of my own feelings, I couldn’t do that to Cora.
“Are the other guys gonna care?” he asks, breaking my heart.
“Absolutely not. Seriously, it’s cool.”
“I mean it’s not like I’m going to go around hitting on them.” I turn to get a good look at Dylan and finally relax when he smirks and keeps talking. “Well, maybe the nerdy firefighter because that sounds kind of hot.”
A snort and a bark of laughter escape from my mouth. “Oh God. Not Phoenix. Either of the others are fine, but not him.”
Joining me in laughter, Dylan flips on his turn signal to take our exit. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”
“He’d never let the rest of us live it down, that’s what. He gets all the girls already because he’s so obnoxious that he’s hard to ignore. But his blond hair and green eyes don’t hurt either. Fucker looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie ad.”
“Hmm,” Dylan hums beside me.
“What’s hmm mean? Oh, at the next light, turn right. We’ll take that until it comes to a T and then turn left.”
Dylan stays quiet beside me, his brows furrowed like he’s deep in thought.
“You going to make me drag it out of you?” I ask, eager to hear what’s going through his mind.
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Nah, I was just thinking blonds aren’t really my type.”
Too intrigued and too turned on to care that I’m potentially showing my hand, I ask, “What is your type?”
Suddenly, the air in the car is so thick it’s hard to breathe.
“I, uh, tend to go for guys with dark hair and dark eyes. Not on purpose, that’s just what I’m usually attracted to.” He makes the turn at the light and we continue down the road with this new information percolating in my brain.
I have dark hair and dark eyes.
“So, do you date often?” I swallow hard, hoping like hell I’m coming across as interested in knowing more about him and not coming across as some ignorant asshole…or worse, a jealous, wanna-be lover.
When he smiles, his brilliant white teeth shine against the backdrop of his caramel skin. His tongue runs slowly across his bottom lip, wetting the pink flesh, distracting the hell out of me. Between his lips and the ring in his nose, it’s a miracle I even see anything past his beautiful face.
“Often? No. If my schedule wasn’t already a challenge to overcome, I’m still definitely the minority in my neighborhood. Plus, I’m picky and there’s not a large culture of extremely masculine men who happen to like other masculine men.”
“Masculine how?” At this point, I’m considering locking the car doors and refusing to get on the boat just to keep him talking. I’m salivating over every word.
He glances at me before returning his attention to the road.
“You sure you want to hear all this?”
Definitely. “Yeah, it’s…interesting.”
“Well, my dad says I tend to gravitate toward unhinged, toxic men with too much between their legs and not enough between their ears.” Dylan’s trying hard to hide his smile at my obvious shock.
“Your dad said that?”
He nods.
“So, he’s cool with it, then?”
“Yeah. My dad looks like a rough-around-the-edges redneck, but he’s pretty progressive. Losing my mom sort of bonded us in a way that made everything else seem trivial. Plus, he also fell in love with someone society said he shouldn’t, so he couldn’t really be angry at me or else he’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite, and that’s not him.”
“Why shouldn’t your dad love your mom?” I want to know so much more. I want to know everything. I want to keep him talking for hours, learn his secrets, and tell him mine.
“Well, she’s gone now. She died when I was twenty, but to answer your question, she was Mexican and the whole interracial thing wasn’t really cool back then.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry to hear she’s passed away. But that explains this,” I say, touching an inkless spot on his forearm to point out his skin-tone. “But what about those?” I ask, pointing to his eyes which he swings to mine.
“My grandfathers on both sides had blue eyes, but no one would talk about where my mom’s dad got his. We don’t speak at all anymore so I’ll probably never know.” His laugh is bitter and the sound wraps around my heart like a vice.
I want to know more, but we pull up to the marina before I get the chance to pepper him with more questions.
The guys honestly won’t care that Dylan’s gay. Not that I expect it to come up, but I feel a surge of protectiveness over him anyway as we turn into the parking lot.
I guide him to an open spot, grab my backpack from the floorboard, and open the door. I got to travel light today because it’s Hudson’s turn to bring the pizza, Phoenix’s turn to bring the cooler of alcohol, and I’ll pay for the gas at the end.
“Hey, the banker has arrived!” Phoenix yells from the boat. His shirt is already off and he has a beer in his hand even though it’s only nine-thirty in the morning. I’ve never really taken notice of Phoenix’s physique, mostly because, well, it’s Phoenix . But now, after Dylan’s comments, I can’t help but appraise him the way I fear Dylan might be doing and I’m annoyed that he might like what he sees despite Phoenix’s light hair and eyes.
“Stuff it, Phoe!”
“Already did,” he grins back, causing me to groan at his joke.
I turn and lower my voice so only Dylan can hear me. “And so, it begins. Welcome to lake day with the guys.”
When Dylan smiles, I have one of those weird, split-second, out-of-body experiences like time stood totally still, and in my mind, I reached up and pulled his face to mine by the back of his neck and sucked that smile into my mouth. The thought is so powerful and fast, it takes me a second to realize I didn’t actually do it.
Relief wars with disappointment.
I take my flip flops off and hand them up to Phoenix before looking back at Dylan. “Supposedly it’s bad luck to wear shoes on a boat so Knox won’t let us,” I explain as Dylan slides his own flip flops off and hands them up.
“Hey man, nice to meet you. I’m Phoenix.” They shake hands.
“Dylan.”
“You want a beer? I’m assuming you need it already since you were trapped in a car with this twatwaffle for the ride over here.”
Dylan laughs and arches a brow at me. Wanting to shut Phoenix up, I playfully shove him onto the padded bench seat behind him. “We’ll see who’s laughing when it’s time to board.” I look over my shoulder at Dylan. “Come on, you can put your stuff in dry storage over here.”
“Hey Knox. Nice to see you again,” Dylan says, shaking the hand of our captain.
“You, too. That security system still doing okay?”
“Yeah, it’s been really helpful and it puts my dad’s mind at ease. Thank you for that.”
Knox gives Dylan a meaningful glance and nods. Knox lost his dad a year after his divorce so I know Dylan’s words hit close to home.
“So, Dyl…can I call you Dyl?” Phoenix makes me pinch the bridge of my nose. “What’s the coolest car you’ve ever worked on?” He pops the top on a beer and hands it to Dylan.
“Well, just this morning a ’69 Corvette rolled into my lot, and if I’m being honest, that one’ll take the cake.” He flashes me a grin and my fucking knees buckle.
“Nah, I’m serious man,” Phoenix starts. “You guys specialize in imports, right? You gotta see some pretty sick rides. Don’t feel like you have to blow smoke up Bill Gates’s ass over here. On the water, he’s not allowed to lord his money over the rest of us.”
Getting defensive, I fire back. “What the fuck, Phoenix? I don’t lord anything over you.”
“Besides,” Knox says, coming to my defense with his feet kicked up on the side of the boat while we wait for Hudson, “if Jake was going to lord something over you, it’d be the size of his dick, not his bank account.”
“I was literally freezing !” Phoenix shouts, making me laugh and tap knuckles with Knox. “Need I remind you assholes, I was naked and I’d just fallen in a frozen fucking lake?”
“Why were you naked on a frozen lake?” Dylan asks, taking a sip of his beer, mirth dancing in his eyes.
“It was a dare on a guys’ trip,” Phoenix explains.
“We were all naked on that frozen lake,” Knox points out. “But Jakey’s schlong was still halfway to his knees.”
“BUT I FELL IN!”
Knox chuckles, knowing he’s getting under Phoenix’s skin and laughter from the dock makes us look up to see Hudson carrying three boxes of pizza in his arms. “Not talking about Phoe’s little peepee again, are we?”
“Fuck you guys,” Phoenix says, flipping the bird around the boat, pulling a rumbling laugh out of me as I reach over to grab the pizza from Hudson so he can climb aboard.
Hudson pats Dylan on the back. “Hey man, welcome to the chaos. I’m Hudson.”
“Dylan.”
“Jake, untie me and push us off, will you?” Knox asks. Hudson’s getting settled and Phoenix is pulling the bumpers up so I lean over the edge of the boat and release the knots keeping us tethered to the dock.
While I’m working on the second tie, a loud smack lands square on my right ass cheek, pitching my stomach into the side of the boat. “ Ow ! Fuck!”
After joining the firehouse, I quickly realized that most guys have a little homosexuality in them regardless of which label they choose to define their sexual orientation. Guys in general use any excuse to whip our cocks out, be naked, slap each other’s asses, wrestle to the floor, etc…I think it’s just the testosterone in us. Well, in them . Me? I’ve only ever wanted guys.
Hudson laughs. “You had that coming.”
“For wha…oh. Riiiiiight. Mine was an accident though.” Last time we were out on the boat, I accidentally smacked Hudson in the ass with the wakeboard while I was trying to get it in the water. I hit him so hard when I turned that he ended up in the water instead and had a decently sized bruise on his hip.
Once we’re untied and everything is stowed, Knox asks who’s taking the board out first as we make our way to our favorite cove to get set up.
“I will,” I volunteer. I don’t like to drink until after I’m done wakeboarding. Plus, if I go first, I can relax on the boat with Dylan for the rest of the afternoon.
When we come to a stop, Knox kills the engine and I move to the transom seat on the back of the boat to start strapping my feet into the boots attached to the board. After that, I reach up for the lifejacket Phoenix is handing me and I start looping my arms through it when he stops me.
“You boarding with your shirt on?”
“Oh.”
I set the lifejacket in my lap and rip my t-shirt off over my head. Handing it up to Phoenix, I catch a glimpse of Dylan’s gaze sweeping over my torso. His blue irises have been swallowed by the darkness of his dilated pupils.
Dark hair, dark eyes, muscled guys with more between their legs...
My cock stirs under his heated gaze.
Maybe I’m more Dylan’s type than either of us realized.